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BioShock Performance Analysis |
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Written by [DR]Rich
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Tuesday, 21 August 2007 |
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Page 2 of 6 The Settings and PreparationHere we see screenshots of the DirectX9 and DirectX10 settings used, which also highlights the difference between the two modes.
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BioShock DirectX9 settings | | 
BioShock DirectX 10 settings | |
// We've since been made aware of an ATI hotfix for the issue and will be retesting the HD2900XT with the hotfix installed. Kudos to ATI for having a fix to the issue.
Here's where the first point of note comes up. The HD2900XT does not render correctly in DirectX10 mode. This is stated clearly in the demo Readme, | | | | 3.7 DX10 Issues
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If you experience graphics corruption or stability issues on Windows Vista using ATi DirectX 10 hardware (eg Radeon HD 2xxx), please launch the game in DirectX 9 mode. This is done by right clicking the Bioshock icon in the game explorer and selecting "Play-DirectX9". | | | | | |
This manifests itself when the DirectX10 detail surfaces and actor detail are shown. Gameplay is affected, as the whole game becomes very dark as the surfaces are just plain black and the models are just block shaded colour as well. As advised, switching to DX9 mode solves this. This should be taken into account when viewing the DirectX10 comparison between the cards. Here are a few examples.
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DX9 as it should be | | 
DX10 texture bug | | |  Another example | |  Another bug | |
Although the Readme also makes reference to "stuttering issues" on certain nVidia cards, this was not apparent when testing on the 8800GTX. The latest Beta driver, available from http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_bioshock_downloads.html is said to fix the issue, and was tested in this review for reference.
Moving on...
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 21 August 2007 )
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